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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. % 

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UNITED STATES OF AMERiCA. 



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BEING AN 



HISTORICAL ESTIMATE 



OF THE STATE 



DELIVERED BEFORE 



THE LEGISLATURE AND OTHER INVITED GUESTS, 



FEmVAL OF THE NOR.ILIL SCHOOL IN NEW BRITAIN, JUNE 4, ISJl. 



BY HORACE BUSH NELL. 



PRINTED BY ORDER OF THE LEGISLATURE. 



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<^ HARTFORD: 
B O S ^V E L L AND FAXON 
1S51. 




NOTE. 

The festival, in connection with which this discourse was delivered, 
celebrated the opening of the new building for the Normal School of 
Connecticut ; a fine spacious structure, erected by the munificence of 
the citizens of New Britain, and presented, on this occasion, to the 
State. 






SPEECH, &C. 



Friends and Fellow Citizens : 

The occasion which has brought us together celebrates 
another stage of advance in the cause of public education in 
our commonwealth. When I accepted the call to address you 
on this occasion, I designed to prepare a theme immediately 
related to the subject of popular education itself. But on more 
mature consideration, taking counsel also of others, I have con- 
cluded that, as the occasion belongs to the state, and as I am to 
speak to the Legislature of the state, I cannot do better than to 
make the state itself — its character and wants and prospects — 
the subject of my address. And I do it the more readily, because 
of the conviction I feel, and hope also to produce, that, if there 
be any state in the world, whose history itself is specially ap- 
propriate to a festival of popular education, that state is Con- 
necticut. 

It is a fact often remarked by the students of history, that all 
the states or nations, that have most impressed the world by 
their high civilization and their genius, have been small in ter- 
ritorial extent. If we ask for the reason, it is probably because 
society is sufficiently concentrated only in small communities, 
to produce the intensest development of mind and character. 
Hence it is not in the ancient Roman or Persian empires, but 
in little sterile Attica, territorially small in comparison even 
with Connecticut, that the chief lawgivers, philosophers, orators, 
poets of antiquity have their spring ; sending out their unarmed 
thoughts to subdue and occupy the mind of the world, in the 
distant ages of time. So again, and probably for a similar 



reason, it is not in the great kingdoms or empires of Western 
Europe, that the quickening powers of modern history have 
their birth ; but in the Florentine Republic, in Flanders, and 
the free commercial cities, in Saxony, Holland, and England. 
Here is the birth place of modern art. Here it is that man- 
ufactures originate and flourish. Here it is that, having no 
territory at home, commerce builds its ships and sends them out 
to claim the seas for a territory. Here is the cradle of the 
Reformation. Here the free principles of government, that 
are running but not yet glorified, took their spring. 

In view of facts like these, it is a great excellence of our 
confederated form of government, that it combines the advan- 
tages both of great and small communities. We have a com- 
mon country, and yet we have many small countries ; a vast 
republic that embosoms many small republics, each possessing 
a qualified sovereignty, each to have a character and make a 
history of its own. There is brought into play, in this manner, 
without infringing at all on the general unity of the republic, 
a more special and homelike feeling in the several states (sharp- 
ened by mutual comparison) which, as a tonic power in society, 
is necessary to the highest developments of character and civ- 
ilization. Spreading out, in a vast republican empire that spans 
a continent, we are thus to be condensed into small communi- 
ties, each distinctly and completely conscious of itself, and all 
acting as mutual stimulants to each other. Nor is any thing 
more to be desired, in this view, than that we preserve our dis- 
tinct position as states, and embody as much of a state feeling 
as possible, about our several centers of public life and action. 
Let Virginia have her "cavaliers" and her "old dominion." Let 
Massachusetts be conscious always of Massachusetts, and let 
every man of her sons, in every grade and party, exult in the 
honors that crown her history. Let the Vermonter speak of 
his " Green Mountain state," with the sturdy pride of a moun- 
taineer. Let the sons of Rhode Island exult in the history and 
spirit of their little fiery republic. This state feeling has an 
immense value, and the want of it is a want much to be de- 
plored. I would even prefer to have this feeling developed so 
strongly as to create some friction between the citizens of the 
different states, rather than to have it deficient. 



Pardon me if I suggest the conviction, that this feehng is not 
as decided and distinct, in our state, as it may be and ought to 
be. It is our misfortune that we hold a position midway be- 
tween two capital cities ; that of New England on one side, 
and the commercial capital of the nation on the other. To 
these we go as our market places. From these we get our 
fashions, our news, and too often our prejudices and opinions ; 
or, what is Avorse, just that neutral state of both, which is crea- 
ted by the very incongruous mixture they produce. Mean- 
time, it is a great misfortune that we have no capital of our 
own, or if any, a migratory capital. For public sentiment, in 
order to get firmness and become distinctly conscious, must 
have fixed objects about which it may embody itself. A. capi- 
tal which is here and there is neither here nor there. It is no 
capital, but a symbol rather of vagrancy, and probably of what 
is worse, of local jealousies which are too contemptible to be 
inspiring. Besides we are too little aware of our own noble his- 
tory as a state. The historical writers of Massachusetts have 
been more numerous and better qualified than ours, and they 
have naturally seen the events of New England history, with 
the eyes of metropolitans. We have, as yet, nothing that can 
be called a just and spirited history of our state, and the mass 
of our citizens seem to suppose that we have no history worthy 
attention. It is only a dry record, they fancy, of puritanical 
severities, destitute of incident and too unheroic to support any 
generous emotions. Our sense of it is expressed in the single 
epithet " the blue law stated Never were any people more 
miserably defrauded. Meantime we are continually sinking in 
relative power, as a member of the confederacy. Our public 
men no longer represent the fourth state in the Union, as in 
the Revolution, but the little, comparatively declining state of 
Connecticut. And the danger is that, as we sink, in the rela- 
tive scale of numbers, the little enthusiasm left us will die out, 
as a spark on our altars, and we shall become as insignificant in 
the scale of moral, as of territorial consequence. 

Accordingly it becomes a very interesting question to the 
people of our state, what shall we do to maintain a position of 
respect and power ? — how shall we kindle and feed the true 



fire of public feeling necessary to our character and our stand- 
ing in the republic ? If there be a citizen present, of any sect 
or party, who can see no interest in such a problem, to him I 
have nothing to say. The man who does not wish to love and 
honor the state, in which he and his children are born, has no 
heart in his bosom, and it is not in any words or arguments of 
mine, certainly, to give him what the sterility of his nature 
denies. 

It will occur to you at once, in the problem raised, that what 
any people can be and ought to be, depends, in a principal de- 
gree, on what they have been. And so much is there in this 
principle, that scarcely any thing is necessary, as it seems to 
me, to exalt our public consciousness and set us forward in the 
path of honor, but simply to receive the true idea of our history 
and be kindled with a genuine inspiration derived from a just 
recollection of the past. 

In this view it is, that I now propose to give you a sketch, or 
outline of our history ; or perhaps I should rather say, an his- 
toric estimate of our standing as a member of the republic. In 
giving this outline, or estimate, I must deal, of course, with facts 
that are familiar to many ; but we have a history of such 
transcendent beauty, freshened by so many inspiring and heroic 
incidents, that we should not easily tire under the recital, how- 
however familiar. Nothing should tire us but the mortifying 
fact, that as a people, we have not yet attained to the sense of 
our own public honors. Mr. Bancroft, the historian, thoroughly 
acquainted with the relative character and merit of the Ameri- 
can States, not long ago said, — "There is no state iA the 
Union, and I know not any in the world, in whose early history, 
it I were a citizen, I could find more of which to be proud, and 
less that 1 should wish to blot." My own conviction is that 
this early history, though not the most prominent, is really the 
most beautiful that was ever permitted to any state or people 
in the world. 

In tracing its outline, I shall be obliged to make some reference 
to that of other states, but I will endeavor not to make the com- 
parison odious. I must infringe, a little, in particular, on some 
of the claims of Massachusetts, and therefore I ought to say be- 
forehand, that no one is more sensible than I to the historic 



merit, or rejoices more heartily, in the proud eininence of that 
state, as one of the members of the republic — a member with- 
out which, indeed, the republic would want a necessary support 
of its character and felicity. It can the better afford to yield 
us, therefore, what is our own ; or rather can the less afford to 
diminish our just honors, by claiming to itself what is quite un- 
necessary to its true pre-eminence of name and its metropolitan 
position as a state. 

It may well be a subject of pride to our state that the original 
settlement of the Connecticut and New Haven colonies, after- 
wards called Connecticut, comprised an amount of character 
and talent so very remarkable. 

There was Ludlow, said to have been the first lawyer of the 
colonies, assisting at the construction of the first written consti- 
tution originated in the new world ; one that was the type of 
all that came after, even that of the Republic itself. Whether 
it was that he was too much of a lawyer to be a hearty Puritan, 
or had too much of the unhappy and refractory element in his 
temper to be comfortable any where, it is somewhat difficult to 
judge. But he became dissatisfied, removed to the Fairfield 
settlement, and afterwards to Virginia. The casual hints and 
traditions, left us of his character, impress the feeling that he 
was a very remarkable man, and excite in us the wish that a 
more adequate account of his somewhat irregular history had 
been preserved to us. 

There was Haynes, also, the first Governor, a man of higher 
moral qualities, and different, though not perhaps inferior ac- 
complishments. He was a gentleman of fortune, holding an 
elegant seat in Essex. But the American wilderness, with a 
right to his own religious convictions, he could easily prefer to 
the charms of affluence and refinement. Turning his back 
upon these, he came over to Boston. And it is a sufficient 
proof of his character and ability that, during his short stay 
there, he was elected Governor of the Massachusetts colony. 
In the new colony that came out afterwards to settle on the 
banks of the Connecticut, he was leader and father from the 
beginning. He was a man of great practical wisdom and per- 



8 

sonal address ; liberal in his opinions, firm in his piety, a man 
every way fit to lay republican foundations. 

Governor Hopkins, a rich Turkey merchant of London, was 
another of the founders ; a man of less gravity though not infe- 
rior in the qualities of fortune, or personal excellence, and supe- 
rior to all in his great munificence. By his bequest the Gram- 
mar schools of Hartford and New Haven, and the Professorship 
of Divinity in Harvard College, were founded. His talents are 
sufficiently evinced by the fact that, returning on a visit to his 
estate and his friends in England, he was detained there by an 
unexpected promotion from Cromwell to be Commissioner of 
the Navy and Admiralty. 

Governor Winthrop, or as he is commonly called, the younger 
Winthrop, was the most accomplished scholar and gentleman 
of New England. Educated to society, liberalized in his views 
by foreign travel, which in that day was a more remarkable 
distinction than it is at present, he was qualifiedby his manners 
and address thus cultivated, to shine as a courtier in the high- 
est circles of influence. A sufficient proof of his power in this 
way, may be found in the fact that the Connecticut charter 
was obtained by him ; an instrument so republican, so singu- 
larly liberal in its terms, that it has greatly puzzled the historians 
to guess by what means any king could have been induced to 
give it, and especially to give it to a Puritan. 

John Mason, the soldier, I will speak of in another place, only 
observing here that he was trained to arms under Lord Fairfax, 
in Holland, and gave so high a proof of his valor and capacity, 
both there and here, that he was solicited by Cromwell to return 
to England, and occupy the high post of Major General in his 
army. 

Thomas Hooker, another of the founders, and first minister 
ot the Hartford colony, was distinguished as a graduate and 
fellow ot Cambridge University, and more as a minister and 
preacher of the established church. He was called the Luther 
of New England, for the reason, I suppose, that the sturdy em- 
phasis and thunder tone of his style resembled him to the great 
Reformer. Whenever he visited Boston, after his removal to 
Connecticut, crowds rushed to hear him as the great preacher 
of the colonies. As a specimen of physical humanity, if we may 



trust the descriptions given of his person, he was one of the 
most remarkable of men ; uniting the greatest beauty of coun- 
tenance with a heiglith and breadth of frame ahnost gigantic. 
The works he has left, more voluminous and various than those 
of any other of the New England founders, are his monument. 

John Davenport, of the New Haven colony, was a different, 
though by no means, inferior man. He was a son of the mayor 
of Coventry, a student and afterwards Bachelor of Divinity at 
Oxford University. Settled as the incumbent of St. Stephen's 
Church, in London, he exerted great influence and power 
among the clergy of the metropolis. His effect lay more ex- 
clusively than Hooker's, in the rigid, argumentative vigor of his 
opinions. Probably no other, unless perhaps we except John 
Cotton, impressed himself more deeply on the churches of New 
England. 

Governor Eaton, of the New Haven colony, had become rich 
by his great and judicious operations, as a merchant in the 
trade of the Baltic. Attracting, in this way, the attention of 
the court, he was honored as the King's Ambassador at the 
court of Denmark ; evidence sufHciently clear of the high esti- 
mation in which he was held, and also of his talents and charac- 
ter — a character not diminished by the noble virtues and the 
high capacities, revealed in his long and beautifully paternal 
administration, as a Christian ruler here. 

Desborough, the New Haven colony soldier, afterwards re- 
turned to England and held the office of Major General in 
Cromwell's army, a fact which sufficiently exhibits him. 

Such were nine of the original founders of Connecticut. 
What one of them has left a blot on his character, or that of 
the state ? What one of them ever I'ailed to fill his place ? 
And that, if I am right, is the truest evidence of merit ; not the 
renown which place and circumstance may give to a far inte- 
rior merit, or which vain ambition, rioting for place, may be able 
to achieve. Is it not a most singular felicity, that our little 
state, planted in a remote wilderness, should have had, among 
its founders, nine master spirits and leaders, so highly accom- 
plished, so worthy to be reverenced for their talents and their 
virtues ? 



10 

I have spoken of the civil constitution of the Hartford or 
Connecticut colony. Virginia began her experiment under 
martial law. The emigrants in the Mayflower are sometimes 
spoken of as having adopted a civil constitution before the land- 
ing at Plymouth ; but it will be found that the brief document 
called by that name, is only a "covenant to be a body politic," 
not a proper constitution. The Massachusetts or Boston colo- 
ny had the charter of a trading company, under cover of 
which, transferred to the emigrants, they maintained a civil 
organization. It was reserved to the infant colony on the 
Connecticut, only three years after the settlement, to model the 
first properly American constitution — a work in which the 
framers were permitted to give body and shape, for the first 
time, to the genuine republican idea, that dwelt as an actuating 
force, or inmost sense, in all the New England colonies. The 
trading-company governor and assistants of the Massachusetts 
colony, having emigrated bodily, and brought over the com- 
pany charter with them, had been constrained to allow some 
modifications, by which their relation as directors of a stock 
subscription were transformed into a more properly civil and 
popular relation. In this manner, the government was gradu- 
ally becoming a genuine elective republic, according to our 
sense of the term. The progress made was wholly in the direc- 
tion taken by the framers of the Connecticut constitution ; 
though, as yet, they had matured no such result. At the very 
time when our constitution was framed, they were endeavor- 
ing, in Massachusetts, to comfort the " hereditary gentlemen" 
by erecting them into a kind of American House of Lords, 
called the "Standing Council for Life." The deputies might 
be chosen from the colony at large, and were not required to 
be inhabitants of the town by which they were chosen. The 
freemen were required to be members of the church, and all the 
officers stood on the theocratic, or church basis, in the same 
way. They were also debating, at this time, the civil admissi- 
bility or propriety of dropping one governor and choosing 
another ; Cotton and many of the principal men insisting that 
the office was a virtual freehold, or vested right. Holding 
these points in view, how evident is the distinctness and the 
proper originality of the Connecticut constitution. It organizes 



11 

a government elective, annually, in all the departments. It 
ordains that no person shall be chosen governor for two suc- 
cessive years. It requires the deputies to be inhabitants and 
representatives of the towns where they are chosen. The 
elective franchise is not limited to members of the church, but 
conditioned simply on admission to the rights of an elector by 
a major vote of the town. In short, this constitution, the first 
one written out, as a complete frame of civil order, in the new 
world, embodies all the essential features of the constitutions of 
our states, and of the Republic itself, as they exist at the pres- 
ent day. It is the free representative plan, which now dis- 
tinguishes our country in the eyes of the world. 

"Nearly two centuries have elapsed," says Mr. Bancroft, 
"the world has been made wiser by various experience, po- 
litical institutions have become the theme on which the most 
powerful and cultivated minds have been employed, dynasties 
of kings have been dethroned, recalled, dethroned again, and so 
many constitutions have been framed or reformed, stifled or 
subverted, that memory may despair of a complete catalogue ; 
but the people of Connecticut have found no reason to deviate 
essentially from the government established by their fathers. 
History has ever celebrated the commanders of armies, on 
which victory has been entailed, the heroes who have won 
laurels in scenes of carnage and rapine. Has it no place for 
the founders of states — the wise legislators who struck the rock 
in the wilderness, and the waters of liberty gushed forth in 
copious and perennial fountains ? They who judge of men, by 
their influence on public happiness, and by the services they 
render to the human race, will never cease to honor the mem- 
ory of Hooker and Haynes." 

Had Mr. Bancroft included, with the names of Hooker and 
Haynes, that also of Ludlow, placing it first in the list, I suspect 
that his very handsome and just tribute of honor would have 
found its mark more exactly. We know that Mr. Ludlow on 
two several occasions after this, was appointed by the Legisla- 
ture to draft a code of laws for the state, and there is much 
reason, in that fact, to suppose that he drew the Constitution 
itself. His impracticable, refractory temper set him on, far- 
ther as many suppose, in the direction of democracy, than any 



12 

other of the distinguished men of the emigration ; and they very 
naturally imagine, for this reason, that they see his hand, in 
particular, in the new Constitution framed. 

I must not omit to mention, what is specially remarkable in 
this document, that no mention whatever is made in it, either 
of king or Parliament, or the least intimation given of allegi- 
ance to the mother country. On the contrary, an oath of alle- 
giance is required directly to the state. And it is expressly 
declared that in the " General Court," as organized, shall exist 
"the Supreme Power of the Commonwealth." 

The precedence we had thus gained, in the matter of consti- 
tutional history, 1 am happy to add, was honorably maintained 
afterwards, in the formation of the Constitution of the Republic 
itself; for it is a fact, which those who are wont to sneer at the 
blueness and legislative incapacity of our state, may be chal- 
lenged also to remember, that Connecticut took the lead in 
proposing and, by the high abilities and the strenuous exertions of 
Ellsworth and Sherman, finally carried that distinction of the 
Constitution of the United States, which is most fundamental 
and peculiar to it as a frame of civil government, and which 
now is just beginning, as never before, to fix the attention and 
attract the admiration of the world. I speak here of the feder- 
ative element, by which so many sovereign states are kept in 
distinct activity, while included under a higher sovereignty. 
When the Convention were assembled that framed the Consti- 
tion of the Republic, they were met, at the threshold, by a very 
important question, viz : — Whether the Constitution to be 
framed should be the Constitution of a ' Nation' or of a ' Con- 
federacy of stales.' Mr. Calhoun gave the true history of the 
struggle, in his speech before the Senate of the United States, 
Feb. 12th, 1847. " The three states, Massachusetts, Pennsyl- 
vania, and Virginia," he said, " were the largest and were ac- 
tively and strenuously in favor of a ' National' government. 
The two leading spirits were Mr. Hamilton of New York, 
probably the author of the resolution, and Mr. Madison of Vir- 
ginia. Jn the early stages of the Convention, there was a 
majority in favor of a ' National' government. But in 
this stage there were but eleven states in the Conven- 
tion. In process of time, New Hampshire came in, a very great 



13 

addition to the federal side, which now became predominant. 
It is owing mainly to the states of Connecticut and New Jersey 
that we have a * Federal' instead of a ' National' government — 
the best government instead of the worst and most intolerable 
on earth. Who are the men of these states to whom we are 
indebted for this admirable government ? I will name them — 
their names ought to be engraven on brass and live forever. 
They were Chief Justice Ellsworth, Roger Sherman, and Judge 
Patterson of New Jersey. The other states farther South 
were blind — they did not see the future. But to the coolness 
and sagacity of these three men, aided by a few others, not so 
prominent, we owe the present Constitution." 

Such is the tribute paid to Connecticut by one of the greatest 
of American statesmen. To have claimed this honor to our- 
selves might have been offensive. To receive it, when it is 
tendered, is no more than a duty. Here then we are in 1850, 
thirty-one states, skirting two oceans, still one republic, under 
one tribunal of justice, under one federal Constitution, which 
we boast as a frame of order that will some time shelter the 
rights and accommodate the manifold interests of 200,000,000 
of people — the greatest achievement of legislative wisdom in 
the modern history of the world — and for Connecticut, who 
came as near being the author of these noble appointments as 
she could, and do it by the votes of other states — for her the 
principal honor and reward of many is a shrug of derision, and 
the sneer that calls her the blue law state ! 

Since I am speaking here of our agency in the matter of 
laws and constitutions, let me go a little farther, and show you 
with what justice our laws can be made, as they so commonly 
are, a subject of derision. The derisive epithet, by which we 
are so often distinguished, was given us by the tory renegade, 
Peters, who, while better men were fighting the battles of their 
country, was skulking in London, and getting his bread there, 
by the lies he could produce against Connecticut. The men- 
dacity of his character and writings has been a thousand times 
exposed, and the very laws that he published, as the " blue," 
shown to be forgeries invented by himself; and yet there are 
many, I am sorry to say, who do not soberly believe that 



14 

wooden nutmegs were ever manufactured in Connecticut, who 
nevertheless accept the blue law fiction as the real fact of his- 
tory. They do not understand, as they properly might, that 
the two greatest dishonors that ever befel Connecticut, are the 
giving birth to Benedict Arnold and the Reverend Samuel 
Peters — unless it be a third that she has given birth to so 
many who, denouncing one, are yet ready to believe and fol- 
low the other. 

There is no state in the civilized world whose laws, headed 
by the noble Constitution of the Hartford Colony, are more 
simple and righteous ; none where the redress of wrongs is less 
expensive, or less cumbered by tedious and useless technicali- 
ties. It is even doubtful whether the new code of practice in 
New York, which is just now attracting so much attention 
abroad, requires to be named as an exception. The first law 
Reports, published in the United States, were Kirby's Connec- 
ticut Reports. The first law school of the nation was the cele- 
brated school of Judge Reeve, at Litchfield , a school which 
gave the first impulse to law as a science in our country. 
Chief Justice Ellsworth, Judges Smith, Gould, Kent, Walworth, 
and I know not how many others most distinguished in legal 
science in our country, were sons of Connecticut. Judge 
Ellsworth was chairman of the committee of Congress that 
prepared the Judiciary Act, by which the Supreme Court of the 
Nation was organized ; and it will be found that some of the 
provisions of that Act that are most peculiar, are copied verba- 
tim from the statutes of Connecticut. The practice of the 
Supreme Court is often said to resemble the practice of Con- 
necticut more than that of any other state. And, what is more, 
the form of the Supreme Court itself, as a tribunal of law, 
chancery, admiralty and criminal jurisdiction, comprised in 
one, is copied from the laws of Massachusetts and Connecticut. 

It is true indeed, reverting to the earlier laws of the common- 
wealth, that we find severities enacted against the Baptists and 
Quakers, precisely as in Virginia, New York, and Massachu- 
setts. How far these laws were executed in Connecticut, 
or under what conditions, I will not undertake to say, but they 
seem to have been aimed only at a class of fanatics, who made 
it a point of duty to violate the religious convictions of every 



15 

body else ; bringing their logs of wood to chop on the church 
steps on Sunday, and their spinning wheels to spin by the door 
and walking the streets in the questionable grace of nudity, 
to testify against the sins of the people. In 1708, the English 
Quakers petitioned the government against these laws, when 
Governor Saltonstall wrote over in reply, to Sir Henry Ashurst, 
as follows , — " I may observe, from the matter of their objec- 
tions, that they have a further reach than to obtain liberty for 
their own persuasion, as they pretend ; (for many of the laws 
they object against concern them no more than if they were 
Turks or Jews,) for as there never was, that I know of, for this 
twenty years that I have resided in this government, any one 
Quaker, or other person, that suffered upon the account of his 
different persuasion, in religious matters, from the body of this 
people, so neither is there any of the society of Quakers any 
where in this government, unless one family or two, on the line 
between us and New York ; which yet I am not certain of." 

Episcopacy was tolerated here by a public act, when, as yel, 
there were not seventy families in the state of that denomina- 
tion — at the very time too, when there were two Presbyterian 
clergymen lying in prison, at New York, for the crime of 
preaching a sermon and baptising a child. After several months 
they obtained their release, by paying a fine of £500 sterling. 
Forty years later, Dr. Rogers, a Presbyterian clergyman, was 
deterred, by threats of a similar penalty, from preaching in 
Virginia. The whole system of tithes was there in force, as 
stiff" as in Ireland now. Fees for marrying, churching and 
burying were established by law. In 1618, a law was passed 
in Virginia, requiring every person to attend church on Sun- 
days and church holidays, on penalty of " lying neck and heels,'' 
as it was called, for one night, and being held to labor as a 
slave, by the colony, for the week following. Eleven years 
after, this penalty was changed, to a fine of one pound of to- 
bacco, " to be paid to the minister." These facts I cite, not to 
bring reproach on other states, but simply to show that religious 
intolerance was the manner of the times. If, in the New 
Haven colony, it is a reproach that only members of the church 
were permitted to vote, the same was true, under the English 
constitution, even down to within our memory. There is no 



16 

sufficient evidence that any person was ever executed for 
witchcraft in this state, though there were several trials, and 
one or two convictions ; which the Governor and Council con- 
trived, I believe, in one way or another, to release. Governor 
Winthrop professed sincere scruples about the crime itself 
How it was in Massachusetts is sufficiently known to us all. 
An execution for this crime took place in Switzerland, in 1760 ; 
at Wurtzberg in Germany, in 1749 ; also, in Scotland, in 1722. 
And, as late as 1716, a poor woman, and her daughter only nine 
years old, were publicly hanged in England, for selling their 
souls to the devil, and for raising a storm by the conjuration of 
pulling off their stockings. The English statute against witch- 
craft stood unrepealed, even down to 1736. 

I confess I was never able to see why so heavy a share of 
the odium of this kind of legislation should fall on the state of 
Connecticut ; whose only reproach, in the matter, is that she 
was not farther in advance of the civilized world, by another 
half century. If the citizens of other states are able sometimes 
to amuse themselves at our expense, we certainly are not re- 
quired to add to their amusement by an over sensitive re- 
sentment. But if any son or citizen of Connecticut is wil- 
ling to accept and appropriate as characteristic of its his- 
tory, the slang epithet which perpetuates a tory lie and forgery, 
then I have only to say that we have just so much reason to be 
ashamed of the state — on his account. He is either raw enough 
to be taken by a very low imposture, or base enough in feeling 
to enjoy a sneer at his mother's honor. 

We have some right, I think, to another kind of distinction, 
which we have never asserted ; that namely of being the colony 
most distinctively independent in our character and proceed- 
ings, in the times of the colonial history, previous to the revo- 
lution. We were able to be so, in part, from our more retired 
and sheltered position, and partly also because of the very pe- 
culiar terms of our charter. Massachusetts, Virginia, A^ew 
York, Pennsylvania, all the other states, with the exception of 
Rhode Island, were obliged by their charters, or the vacation 
of their charters, to accept a chief executive, or governor, ap- 
pointed by the crown. These royal governors had a negative 



17 

upon the laws. They personated the king, maintaining a kind 
of court pomp and majesty, overawing the people, thwarting 
their- legislation, wielding a legal control, in right of the king, 
over the whole military force, much as at the present day in 
Canada. But the charter obtained for Connecticut, by the 
singular address of Winthrop, allowed us to choose our own 
governor and exercise all the functions of civil order. And so 
we grew up, as a people, unawed by the trappings of royalty, a 
race of simple, self-governing republicans. 

For three little towns, on the Connecticut, to declare inde- 
pendence of the mother country, we can easily see would have 
been the part of madness — probably they had not so much as a 
thought of it — and yet they had a something, a wish, an in- 
stinct, call it what you will, which could write itself properly 
out, in their constitution, only in the words, " Supreme Power." 
And I see not how these words, formally asserting the sovereign- 
ty of their General Court, escaped chastisement; unless it was 
that they found a shelter for the crime, in their remoteness, and 
the obscurity of their position. In this view, there was a kind 
of sublimity in the sturdy growth of their sheltered and silent 
state. They had no theories of democracy to assert. They 
put on no brave airs for liberty. But they loved their con- 
science and their religion, and in just the same degree, loved 
not to be meddled with. In this habit their children grew up. 
Their very intelligence became an eye of jealousy, and they 
acknowledged the right of the king, much as when we acknowl- 
edge the lightning — by lifting a rod to carry it off! But when 
the king came down upon them, in some act of authority or 
royal interference that touched the security of their principles 
or their position, then it was as if the Great Being, who had 
" ordained whatsoever comes to pass," had ordained that some 
things should not come to pass. 

On as many as four several occasions, during the colonial 
history, they set themselves in open conflict with the king's 
authority, and triumphed by their determination. First in the 
case of the regicide Judges, secreted at New Haven ; when 
Davenport took for his text — " Make thy shadow as night in the 
midst of noon, hide the outcasts, bewray not him that wander- 
eth." The king's officers were active in the search ; but, tor 
2 



18 

some reason, the noon was as the night, and their victims could 
not be found. Massachusetts expostulated with the refractory 
people of New Haven, representing how much they would en- 
danger all the colonies, if they did not hasten to address His 
Majesty in some proper excuse, to which they replied that they 
were ignorant of the form ! 

Again, by rallying a force at New London, when Sir Ed- 
mund Andross landed there, to proclaim the new patent of the 
Duke of York, and take possession of the town — silencing him 
in the act, and compelling him to return to his ships. 

A third time, when this same officer came on to Hartford, to 
vacate the charter — a passage of history commemorated by the 
noble oak, whose gnarled trunk and limbs still remain, to rep- 
resent the crabbed independence of the men, who would not 
yield their rights to the royal mandate. May the old oak live 
forever ! 

And yet a fourth time, by asserting and vindicating, what 
is the essential attribute of political independence, viz. the con- 
trol and sovereignty of their own military force. Governor 
Fletcher came on to Hartford, from New York, to demand the 
control of the militia in the king's name ; and when he insisted 
on reading the proclamation, he was drummed into silence by 
command of Wadsworth, the chief officer. When the drum- 
mer slacked, the word was, " Drum I say ;" and to the Gov- 
ernor, " Stop, Sir, or I will make the sun shine through you in 
an instant." He withdrew, — the point was carried, and the 
control of the military was retained. After that, when Pitt, at 
the height of his power, wanted troops from Connecticut, he 
sent the request of a levy to the Legislature, not a military 
order. 

It is not my design, as you have seen, to represent, in these 
facts of history, that we had consciously and purposely set up 
for independence ; but only that we had so much of the self- 
governing spirit in us, nourished by the scope of our charter, 
and sheltered by our more retired position, that we took our 
independence before we knew it, and had the reality before we 
made the claim. 

In Massachusetts, the metropolitan colony, which had a more 
open relation to the mother country, the spirit of independent^ 



was checked continually by considerations of prudence and, at 
Boston especially, by the presence of the king and a kind of 
court influence maintained by the royal governors. Accord- 
ingly the Rev. Daniel Barber, who went on with the Connecti- 
cut troops to Boston, at the first outbreak of the Revolution, 
says, — "In our march through Connecticut, the inhabitants 
seemed to view us with joy and gladness, but when we came 
into Massachusetts and advanced nearer to Boston, the inhab- 
itants, where we stopped, seemed to have no better opinion of 
us than if we had been a banditti of rogues and thieves ; which 
mortified our feelings, and drew from us expressions of angry 
resentment" — a fact in which we see, what could not be other- 
wise, that the people nearest to the court influence in the me- 
tropolis, were many of them infected with a spirit opposite to 
the cause of the colonies. But here in the rear ground, and a 
little removed from observation, it was far otherwise. Here 
the sturdy spirit found room to grow and embody itself, unre- 
strained by authority, uncorrupted by mixtures of opposing 
influence. How necessary this sound rear-work of independ- 
ence and homogenous feeling, in Connecticut, may have been 
to the confidence and the finally decisive action of the men, who 
immediately confronted the royal supremacy in Massachusetts, 
we may never know. Suffice it to say that the causes of pub- 
lic events most prominent, are not always the most real and 
effective. 

It is noticeable, also, that we went into the revolution under 
peculiar advantages. We were not obliged to fall into civil 
disorganization by ejecting a royal governor, in the manner of 
other colonies. Our state was full organized, under a chief 
magistracy of her own, having command of her own military 
force, ready to move, without loosing a pin in her political fab- 
ric. One of the royal governors ejected was even sent to Con- 
necticut for safe keeping. We had kept up our fire in the rear, 
making every hamlet and village ring with defiance, and erect- 
ing our poles of liberty on every hill, during the very important 
interval between the passage of the Boston port bill and the 
stamp act. And so fierce and universal was the spirit of resist- 
ance here, that, while the stamps were carried into all the other 



20 

states, no officer of the crown dared undertake the sale of them 
in Connecticut. 

The forwardness of our state in the matter of independence, 
is sufficiently evinced by the fact that our Legislature passed a 
bill, on the 14th of June previous to the memorable 4th of July, 
instructing her delegates to urge an immediate declaration of 
independence. Nor did she sign that declaration by the hands 
only of her own delegates. Two of her descendents in New 
Jersey and one in Georgia, are among the names enrolled in 
that honored instrument. Georgia withheld herself, at first, 
from the Revolution. But there was a little Puritan settlement 
at Midway, in that state, in which, as a physician and a man 
of public influence, resided Doctor Hall, a native of Walling- 
ford, and a graduate of Yale College. These Midway Puritans 
were resolved to have their part in the Revolution, at all haz- 
ards. They made choice of Doctor Hall and sent him on to 
the Congress as their delegate. He signed the declaration and, 
the next year, Georgia came forward and took her place, led 
into the Revolution by the hand of Connecticut. Is it then too 
much to affirm, in view of all these facts, that if any state in 
the union deserves to be called the Independent State, Connect- 
icut may safely challenge that honor. 

I must also speak of the military honors of our history. Mar- 
tial distinctions are not the highest, and yet there is a kind of 
military glory that can never fade ; that, I mean, which is 
gained in the defence of justice and liberty, as distinguished 
from the idle bravery of chivalry, and the rapacious violence of 
conquest. 

It is abundantly clear, as a fact of history, that our two colo- 
nies meant, in their public relations with the Indian tribes, to 
fulfil the exactest terms of justice and good neighborhood. Still 
it happened, doubtless, as it always will in such cases, that indi- 
viduals, instigated by a spirit of mischief or insolence, or by the 
cupidity of gain, trepassed on their rights, not seldom, in acts 
of bitter outrage. Such wrongs could not be absolutely pre- 
vented, and, by reason of a diversity of language and the sepa- 
rate, wild habit of the Indians, could not be efl'ectually investi- 
gated or redressed. Exasperated, in this manner, they of 



21 

course would take their revenge in acts of violence and blood ; 
and then it would be necessary to arm the public force against 
thenn, for the public protection. It is very easy to theorize in 
this matter, and say how it should be, but this issue, much as 
we deplore it, could not well be avoided. 

It is affirmed and, by many, believed that the Pequods had 
been instigated in this manner, to the thirty murders perpetra- 
ted in their incursions on the river settlements, during the win- 
ter and spring of 1G37. Be it so, the colony must still be de- 
fended. Every settlement is filled with consternation. They 
set their watch by night, and tend their signal flag by day to 
give notice of enemies. The Pequods have been described to 
them as one of the most numerous and powerful of the Indian 
tribes. They imagine them dvvelling in the deep woods, guessing 
how powerful they may be, and at what hour the foe may burst 
upon their settlement, here or there, in the fury of savage war. 
What they dread, in the power of their enemy, so long and 
wearily, they, of course, magnify. It is no time now for such 
points of casuistry as entertain us. The hour has come, a de- 
cisive blow must be struck; for the danger and the dread are 
no longer supportable. 

It had also been ascertained that the Pequods were endeav- 
oring to enlist all the other tribes, in a common cause against 
the colonies. Massachusetts, accordingly, had agreed to join 
the expedition against them, but at what point the junction 
would be made could not be settled beforehand. With his 
ninety men, a full half the able bodied men of the colony, Capt. 
Mason descended the river to Saybrook, passed round to the 
Narragansett Bay, and, falling in there with a small party of 
Massachusetts men returning from Block Island, made his land- 
ing. His inferior officers, when he opened his plan, proposing 
to march directly into the Pequod country, waiting for no junc- 
tion with the Massachusetts troops, strenuously opposed him. 
They were to pierce an unknown country and meet an un- 
known enemy. What could assure this little band of men against 
extermination, fighting in the woods with a fierce nation of sav- 
ages ? But the chaplain led them to God for direction, and 
they yielded their dissent. And here, in the stand of Mason, 
is, in fact, the battle and the victory ; for they came upon the 



22 

great fort of the enemy, after a rapid march, and took it so com- 
pletely by surprise, that what was to be a battle became only a 
conflagration and a massacre. The glory is not here, but in 
the celerity of movement and the peremptory military decision 
that brought them here. They are too few in number to make 
prisoners of their enemy, and another body of the tribe, whose 
number is unknown, are near at hand. Accordingly their 
work must be short and decisive — a work they make it of ex- 
termination. We look on the scene with sadness and with 
mixtures of revolted feeling; but we are none the less able 
to see, in this exploit of Mason, with his ninety men, why Crom- 
well wanted him for a Major General in his army. He under- 
stands, we perceive, as thoroughly as Napoleon, that celerity 
and decision are sometimes necessary elements of success, and 
even of safety. This kind of generalship too requires a great 
deal more of nerve and military courage often, than the fighting 
of a hard contested battle. 

This reduction of the Pequods is remarkable as being the 
first proper military expedition, or trial of arms in New Eng- 
land. If they had been wronged, we pity them. If not, still 
we pity them. In any view, the colony has done what it could 
not avoid, and the long agony of their fear is over. Their wives 
and children can sleep in peace. 

Mason returned with his little Puritan legion to Hartford, 
having lost in the encounter but a single man, the guns of the 
fort at Saybrook booming out through the forests, in a salute of 
victory, as he passed, and was immediately complimented, by 
the Legislature, in the appointment of general-in-chief to the 
colony. Hooker was designated to deliver him his commis- 
sion, in presence of the assembled people. 

Here is a scene for the painter of some future day — I see it 
even now before me. In the distance and behind the huts of 
Hartford, waves the signal flag by which the town watch is to 
give notice of enemies. In the foreground, stands the tall, 
swart form of the soldier in his armor ; and before him, in 
sacred apostolic beauty, the majestic Hooker. Haynes and 
Hopkins, with the Legislature and the hardy, toil-worn settlers 
and their wives and daughters, are gathered round them in 
close order, gazing, with moistened eyes, at the hand which lifts 



23 

the open commission to God, and listening to the fervent praver 
that the God of Israel will endue his servant, as heretofore, with 
courage and counsel to lead them in the days of their future 
peril. True there is nothing classic in this scene. This is no 
crown bestowed at the Olympic games, or at a Roman triumph, 
and yet there is a severe, primitive sublimity in the picture, 
that will sometime be invested with feelings of the deepest 
reverence. Has not the time already come, when the people 
of Connecticut will gladly testify that reverence, by a monu- 
ment that shall make the beautiful valley of the Yantic, where 
Mason sleeps, as beautifully historic, and be a mark to the eye 
from one of the most ancient and loveliest, as well as most 
populous, towns of our ancient commonwealth ? 

The conduct of our state, in two other chapters of history of a 
later date, displays a moral dignity, as well as military firmness, 
of which we have the highest reason to be proud. The Dutch 
governor of New York, it was ascertained, had entered into 
an alliance with the savages, to make war upon the English 
colonies. The commissioners of these colonies, already united 
in a federal compact with each other, had voted a levy of troops 
for the defence, and assessed the number to be raised by each. 
The Hartford and New Haven colonies were prompt and inde- 
fatigable in their exertions, as their own more immediate expo- 
sure required. Plymouth was ready and kept her faith, but 
Massachusetts tempted, for once, to an act of perfidy, most 
sadly contrasted with her noble history, refused ; leaving the 
Connecticut colonies cruelly exposed to the whole force of the 
enemy. The condition of our people was one of distressing 
excitement. Every hour, for a whole half year, it was expected 
that the invasion would begin. Forts were erected, a frigate 
was manned, night and day were spent in watching ; till, 
at length, the victory of the English over the Dutch fleet at 
sea put an end to the danger ; only leaving the two colonies of 
Connecticut overwhelmed by enormous expenses incurred for 
their defence. The indignation was universal. And when the 
commissioners were assembled again, at their annual meeting, 
our commissioners magnanimously refused to sit with those from 
Massachusetts, without some atonement for their ignominious 
breach of faith and duty. 



24 

Then came the turn of Massachusetts. King Philip, as he 
was called, had rallied all the savage tribes of New England, for 
a last, desperate effort to expel and exterminate the colonies, 
The havoc was dreadful — whole towns swept away by the 
nightly incursions of the savages, wives and children massacred? 
companies of troops surprised and butchered, all the frontier 
settlements of Massachusetts smoking in blood and conflagra- 
tion. It was the dark day of the colonies, and, for a time, it 
really seemed that they must be exterminated. Then it was 
that Connecticut proved her fidelity, sending out five compa- 
nies of troops to the aid of Massachusetts. And the combined 
troops marched together, in a cold snowy day, fifteen miles 
through the forests, fought in the deep snow one of the blood- 
iest battles on record, and then marched back, carrying their 
wounded with them, to encamp in the open air. The attack 
was upon the great fort of the Narragansets, and was led by 
the Massachusetts troops, in a spirit of valor worthy of success. 
Unable, however, to force the entrance, they were obliged, 
after suffering greatly from the enemy, to fall back. The Con- 
necticut troops were then brought up, and we may judge of 
their determination by the fact, that nearly one-third of their 
number fell in the assault, and that, out of their five captains, 
three were killed on the spot, and a fourth died of his wounds 
afterwards. The assault was carried. The second winter, 
four companies of rangers, raised in New London county, were 
sent out, by turns, to scour the Narragansett country, and har- 
rass the enemy by a continual desultory warfare. Finally, the 
tide was turned, and the capture of Philip ended the struggle. 
Thus nobly did Connecticut repay the injustice and wrong of her 
sister colony. 

We can hardly imagine it, but there was seldom a year 
in the early history of our state, now so quiet and remote from 
the turmoils of war, when she was not marching her troops, one 
way or another, to defend her own, or more commonly some 
neighboring settlement— to Albany, to Brookfield, to Spring- 
field, to the Narragansett country, to Schenectady, to Crown 
Point, to Louisburg, to Canada— issuing bills of credit, levying, 
all the while, enormous taxes, and maintaining a warlike activity 
scarcely surpassed by Lacedemon itself There was never a 



25 

spark of chivalry in her leaders, and yet there was never a 
coward among them. Their courage had the Christian stamp, 
it was practical and related to duty ; always exerted for some 
object of defence and safety. They knew nothing of fighting 
without an object, and when they had one, they went to the 
work bravely, simply because it was sound economy to fight 
w^ell ! We are accustomed to speak of the wars of the revolu- 
tion, but these earlier wars, so little remembered, were far more 
adventurous and required a much stouter endurance. 

When combined with the British forces, our troops were, of 
course, commanded in chief by British leaders, and these were 
generally incompetent to the kind of warfare necessary in this 
country. Scarcely ever did they lose a battle or sufler a de- 
feat in these wars, in which our provincial captains did not first 
protest against their plan. Sometimes the Parliament were 
constrained to compliment our troops, but more generally, if 
some exploit was carried by the prowess of a colonial captain, 
as in the case of Lyman, the hero of Crown Point, his superior 
was knighted and he forgotten. In the last French war, under Pitt, 
when a large part of her little territory was yet a wilderness, 
Connecticut raised and kept in the field, at her own expense, 
for three successive years, 5,000 men ; so great was her endur- 
ance and her zeal against the common enemy. It was here 
that Putnam and Worcester took their lessons of exercise in 
the military art, and practiced their courage for a more serious 
and eventful struggle. 

This eventful struggle came ; finding no state readier to act 
a worthy and heroic part in it. y\s early as September, 1774, 
the false rumor of an outbreak in Boston had set the whole mil- 
itary force of the colony in motion — a sign, before the time, ol 
what was to be done when the time arrived. In April of 
1775, before the battle of Lexington and before the Revolution 
could be generally regarded as an ascertained fact, a circle o f 
sagacious, patriotic men, assembled in Hartford, perceiving the 
immense advantage that would accrue to the cause, from the 
capture and possession of the Northern fortresses that com- 
manded Lake Champlain, Ticonderoga and Crown Point, em. 
barked in a scheme, to seize them, by a surprise of the British 
garrisons. They had a secret understanding with Governor 



26 

Trumbull, and drew their funds from the public treasury, by a 
note under the joint signature of their names, eleven in num- 
ber. The enterprise was committed to Ethan Allen and Seth 
Warner, both natives of Roxbury, now residing in Vermont. 
A few men were sent on from Connecticut, forty or fifty more 
were collected in Berkshire county, in Massachusetts, and the 
remainder were enlisted in Vermont. The enterprise was suc- 
cessful. More than two hundred cannon were captured — the 
same that were afterwards dragged across the mountains to 
Boston, and employed by Washington in the seige and final 
expulsion of Lord Howe. When the commander, of Ticonde- 
roga, inquired by what authority the surrender was demanded, 
Allen's reply was — " In the name of the Great Jehovah and the 
Continental Congress." That he had no authority from the 
Continental Congress, save what had come to him through the 
Great Jehovah, is certainly very clear ; hence, I suppose, the 
form of his answer. 

It appears that Benedict Arnold, who was in Boston about 
this time, obtained a commission from the committee of safety 
there, authorising him to conduct, in their behalf, a similar un- 
dertaking. But finding himself anticipated, when he reached 
Vermont, he was obliged to waive his right of command and 
took his place, as a volunteer, under Allen. Some of the Mas- 
sachusetts historians, who have claimed the credit of this ex- 
ploit, in behalf of their state, are clearly seen, therefore, to have 
trespassed on the honors of Connecticut. Connecticut projected 
and executed the movement. The treasury of Connecticut 
footed the bills. The prisoners were brought to Connecticut and 
quartered at West Hartford. 

The surrender of these fortresses took place on the 10th of 
May. Meantime, on the 18th of April, and before the capture 
was consummated, the news of the battles of Concord and 
Lexington had arrived, and resistance to the mother country 
was seen to be openly begun. Putnam left his plow in the fur- 
row, not remaining, it is even said, to unyoke his oxen, and 
flew to the field of action. The troops of the state poured after 
him, to be gathered under his command. The battle of Bunker 
Hill soon followed. 

It is remarkable that the question, who commanded in this 



27 

very celebrated battle, has never yet been settled. The Massa- 
chusetts historians have generally maintained that Prescott was 
the commander ; and some of them have even gone so far as 
not to recognise the presence of Putnam in it. The more can- 
did and moderate have generally admitted his presence in the 
field and the valuable service rendered, by his inspiriting and 
heroic conduct. Prescott, they say, commanded in the trenches, 
and Putnam was engaged outside of the trenches, in the open 
field and about the other hill by which the redoubt was over- 
looked or commanded ; doing what he could for the success of 
the day, but only in virtue of the commission he had from his 
own personal enthusiasm. As regards any chief command 
over the whole field of operations, they suppose there probably 
was none, alleging that the army was really not organized, and 
no scale of proper military precedence established. 

As respects this latter point, which at first view might seem 
to be true, they are certainly in a mistake. For Putnam had 
been expressly ordered, by our Legislature, to put himself under 
the chief command of Massachusetts ; as the conditions of the 
case evidently required. He was serving, therefore, as an in- 
tegral part of the military force of Massachusetts. Neither was 
he or Prescott, or Warren, the general-in-chief of the army, so 
raw in the practice of arms as not to know that, being on the 
ground as a general of brigade, the scale of military precedence 
made him, ipso facto, principal in command over the colonel of 
a regiment. 

To the same conclusion we are brought, by a careful review 
of all the facts pertaining to the battle itself. There appears 
to be sufficient evidence that General Putnam, after his suc- 
cessful encounter sometimes called the battle of Chelsea, 
which took place on the 27th of May previous, and by which 
he had produced some stir of sensation in the army, became 
more impatient of a state of inaction than ever, and proposed 
himself, in the council of war, that they should take up this ad- 
vanced position on Bunker Hill. Prescott was in favor of the 
movement, but, Gen. Ward and others, including even Gen. War- 
ren a member of the Council of Safety, were opposed; regarding 
the attempt as being too hazardous in itself, and one that would 
endanger the main position at Cambridge. Besides, what proba- 



28 

bly had quite as much influence, they distrusted the spirit of the 
troops, still raw in discipline ; doubling whether they would 
come to the point of an open, pitched battle with the king and 
stand their ground. They had the same feeling that Washing- 
ton had, when he enquired, after the battle — " Could they stand 
fire ?" and when the answer was given, replied — " the cause is 
safe !" Putnam believed they would stand fire before hand? 
urging the necessity of action to bring out the spirit that was in 
them and confirm it. Give them a good breast-work on the 
hill, he said, laughingly, and they will hold it. " They are not 
afraid of their heads, though very much afraid of their legs ; if 
you cover these they will fight forever." Warren, who was 
jfacing the room, paused over a chair, and said, " Almost thou 
persuadest me, Putnam. Still, I think the project rash ; but if 
you undertake it, [' you,' observe] you will not be surprised to 
find me at your side." Finally, ascertaining that Gen. Gage 
was about to do the very thing proposed, their hesitation was 
brought to an end. 

It was supposed, in the council, that " two thousand men" 
would be required to effect and maintain the proposed occupa- 
tion. Accordingly we are to understand that, when only a 
thousand were detailed, under Col. Prescott, to occupy the hill 
and open the entrenchments on the night of the 16th, it was ex- 
pected that other troops were to be sent forward under a more 
general command, when they were wanted. And beyond a 
question this command was to be in Putnam, the chief mover 
of the enterprise. Accordingly we see that Putnam went over 
with the detachment, under Prescott, and assisted in directing 
where, the entrenchment should be opened, viz : on the lower 
summit, or part of Bunker Hill, nearest to the city, afterwards 
called Breed's Hill ; in the understanding that the higher emi- 
nence should be taken afterward, when required, and entrench- 
ments opened there. Putnam returned that night to Cam- 
bridge, and was back in the early dawn of the morning, as a 
responsible officer should be, to see the condition of the works. 
At ten o'clock, he was in the field again. And as soon as it be- 
came evident that there was to be an assault upon the works, 
he ordered on the Connecticut troops, by the consent of General 
Ward, and was there, on the field, at the beginning of the en- 



29 

gagement. Leaving Prescott, of course, to his position, which 
he had simply to maintain, we see him directing the detach- 
ments to their places; beginning entrenchments on the other 
summit : rebuking and rallvinci; the timid ; seizins; on a cannon 
which it was said, could not be loaded, and loading and firing it 
himself; maintaining the left wing wiiich Lord Howe w^as con- 
stantly endeavorins; to carry, and the yielding; of which would, 
at any moment, have ended the struggle of Prescott on the hill ; 
saving also, by his firmness here, the retreat of Prescott from be- 
ing only a slaughter or a capture ; last in the retreat himself, 
trying to rally for a stand upon the other hill, and only not en- 
deavoring to maintain the post alone ; then withdrawing and, of 
his own counsel, mounting Prospect Hill with the Connecticut 
forces, opening his entrenchments there in the night, and hold- 
ing it as a position between the enemy and Cambridge ; a 
movement by which he probably saved the town and the public 
stores of the army ; for when the enemy saw his works there 
the next morning, they had no courage left to try a second day, 
against a position so admirably chosen — a position in which he 
was afterwards installed, by Washington, to maintain the honors 
of the centre of the army. 

There was little reason, as we have seen, for Putnam to be 
multiplying orders to Prescott ; the only thing to be done was 
to enable Prescott, if possible, to hold his position. But it is in 
evidence that he did order away the entrenching tools, against 
the judgment of Prescott ; also that, when Warren came upon 
the ground, he ^yent to Putnam, as the officer of direction, to ask 
where he should go to serve as a volunteer, and that Putnam 
sent him to the redoubt, to the aid of Prescott ; also that the 
same order, in regard to firing, occasioned by the shortness of 
their ammunition, was given every where on the field, as well 
out of the redoubt as in it, and that Putnam said himself that he 
gave the order. 

It is very easy to see, regarding this statement of facts, how 
Prescott should often have been spoken of as being the chief in 
command in this battle, and even how he should have thought 
himself to be; for he had the redoubt in charge at the begin- 
ning, and maintained the internal command of it. He came 
under a hisfher command, onlv bv silent rules of military prece- 



30 

dence, when other forces were upon the ground ; of which he 
would hardly take note himself, so little was he interfered with. 
Putnam had work enough without, in the open field, and was 
very sure that Prescott would do his part within. It is only a 
little remarkable that Col. Prescott, when questioned by Mr. 
Adams, at Philadelphia, in regard to the battle, does not even 
name Gen. Putnam, as having been upon the ground at all ; 
and apparently had not ascertained, two months after the bat- 
tle, whether the Connecticut militia, sent out by himself, under 
Knowlton, to hold a position against the enemy's right, had 
obeyed his orders or had run away. And it is even the more 
remarkable, that this body of men, assisted by the brave Capt. 
Chester of Wethersfield, and others whom Putnam was rallying 
to their support during the whole engagement, had been able, 
by raising an extempore breast work of fence and new-mown 
grass, and defending it with Spartan fidelity, to save him all 
the while from being flanked and cut to pieces. For upon 
just this point Lord Howe was rolling his columns, with the 
greatest emphasis of assault, resting his main hope of success 
on turning the position so gallantly defended, and gaining, in 
this manner, the other summit of the hill, which, if he had been 
able to do, Prescott and his regiment would have been, from 
that moment, prisoners of war. In this view, it is a total mis- 
take to look upon the defence of the redoubt, brilliant as it was 
and prominent to the eye, as the battle of Bunker Hill. The 
place of extempore counsel and varying fortune, the hinge of 
the day, was really, not there, but in the open field ; and espe- 
cially in moving, there, _ raw bodies of troops, with any such 
effect as to maintain the critical point of the engagement. 

The testimony of authorities, in respect to the question of 
the chief command, you will understand is various and contra- 
dictory, as it naturally would be. And yet the contradiction 
is rather verbal than real ; for as Prescott held the redoubt, in 
the manner described, it would be very natural, taking a more 
restricted view of the field, to speak of him as chief in com- 
mand ; though the facts already recited, show most clearly, 
that Col. Sweet gave the true testimony, when he said that Col. 
Prescott " was ordered to proceed to Charlestown, Gen. Putnam 
having the principal direction and superintendence of the expe- 



31 

dition concerning it." This too was the testimony of Putnam 
himself, as Rev, Josiah Whitney testifies, in a note to the fu- 
neral sermon preached at Putnam's death. He says, " The 
detachment was first put under the command of Gen. Putnam. 
With it he took possession of the hill, and ordered the battle 
from the beginning to the end." Does any one imagine that 
Gen. Putnam was a man to assert claims of honor that belonged 
to others ? Far more likely was he, in the generosity of his 
nature, to give up such as were properly his own. 

The testimony of the old Courant, commenting on the battle, 
shortly after, corresponds. " In the list of heroes it is need- 
less to expatiate on the character and bravery of Major Gen. 
Putnam, whose capacity to form and execute great designs, is 
known through Europe, and whose undaunted courage and 
martial abilities have raised him to an incredible height, in the 
esteem and friendship of his American brethren ; it is sufficient 
to say, that he seems to be inspired by God Almighty with a 
military genius." Col. Humphrey, writing his Life of Putnam 
at Mount Vernon, under the eye of Washington, and Botta, 
who derives his facts from original sources, agree in represent- 
ing Putnam as the chief in command. 

Moreover, Washington, when he came upon the field only a 
few days after the battle, with commissions from the Congress 
appointing four Major Generals, immediately delivered Putnam 
his commission, placing him second in command to himself, and 
reserved the three others for the further consideration of Con- 
gress ; though Putnam's commission, placing him above two 
very talented officers of the state, superior in rank to himself, 
had created more complaint than either of the others. Why 
this remarkable deference to Putnam, unless he has been the 
chief actuating spirit in some great success ? Why this signal 
honor on Gen. Putnam, when the eyes of the army and of the 
public at large, in the flush of enthusiasm that follows the late 
battle, are centered on another — who, I believe, was never 
afterwards promoted ? 

I have seen too, within a very few days, an original engra- 
ving of Gen. Putnam, published in England three months alter 
the battle, which has at the foot these words, — " Major Gen. 
Putnam, of the Connecticut forces, and Commander in Chief of 



32 

the engagement on Buncker's Hill, near Boston. Published, 
as the Act directs, by C. Shepherd, 9th Sept. 1775." That he 
had the chief command here assigned him T firmly believe ; 
which if he has lost, it has been at least three months subse- 
quent to the battle ; and by means that often discolor the 
truth of history. The occupation of the hill, I believe, was 
emphatically Putnam's measure ; and one that truly represents 
the man. How can we think otherwise ? See him in the 
council, the march, the beginning of the entrenchment,, the 
fight itself; present every where, directing, cheering on the men, 
rallying all the force he can to keep the difficult point of the 
field ; last in the retreat, issuing grimmed with smoke and gun- 
powder, and seizing, with his force, another hill, there to en- 
trench again and wait the fortune of another day. Do this, I 
say, and there is but one conclusion for us to receive. Our con- 
viction will be clear that, if the monument on Bunker Hill is a' 
worthy testimony for Massachusetts, it testifies as much also 
for Connecticut ; and I hope our Connecticut eyes will be par- 
doned, if we see it tapering off into a top-stone, that represents 
the little town of Pomfret ! 

1 have dwelt the more at length on this question, because we 
seem to have lost our rights here, in a transaction that in one 
view stands at the head of our American history ; and yet more 
because of the good it will do us to reclaim our rights. I sup- 
pose it may well enough be doubted whether Putnam was the 
ablest of all great commanders ; whether, in fact, he was the 
general to head what would be called, in history, a great mili- 
tary campaign. He was a man of action, inspiration, adven- 
ture, and he made men feel as he felt. " You seem to have the 
faculty, Sir," said Washington, " of infusing your own spirit." 
Nothing was more truly distinctive of the man. His value lay 
in the immense volume of impulse or martial enthusiasm there 
was in him, and in the fact that his time was always now. And 
the country wanted impulse to break silence, and make its first 
trial with the British arms. He was the man, above all others 
in the colonies, to give that impulse. A more cautious man, 
probably would not have advised to such an attempt ; possibly 
a wise man would not ; but Putnam, whose impetuous soul had 
only a feeble connection with prudence, or with mere science, 



33 

was the man to say, " let us have the fight first, and settle the 
wisdom of it afterwards." Possibly there is a higher kind of 
generalship ; but, I know not how it is, when I see how much 
depended for our country, at that time, on a real beginning of 
action, I am ready for once, to accept impulse as the truest coun- 
sel, and the fire of martial passion as being only the inspired 
form of prudence. 

I cannot give you the details of our military transactions in 
the Revolution. I can only name a few facts, that will suffice 
to indicate the spirit and devotion of our people. Connecticut 
was the second state in the Union as regards the amount of 
military force contributed to the common cause. She had 
twenty-five regiments of militia and of these, it is said, that 
twenty-two full regiments were in actual service, out of the 
state, at one and the same time, and that the most busy and 
pressing season of the year ; leaving the women at home to 
hoe their fields and assist the boys and old men in gathering 
the harvests. And such a class of material has seldom been 
gathered into an army. When Trumbull sent on fourteen 
regiments to Washington, at New York, he described them as 
"regiments of substantial farmers," And General Root, as a 
friend of mine remembers, declared that, in his brigade alone, 
there came out seven ministers, as captains of their own con- 
gregations. Among their leaders was Colonel Knowlton, than 
whom there was not a more gallant officer, or one more re- 
spected by the commander-in-chief in the army of the Revolu- 
tion. And when he fell, in the disastrous day at Harlaem, with 
so many hundreds of the sons of Connecticut, Washington 
evinced his affliction for the loss of this favorite officer, as beins 
the loss most deplorable of all that befell the cause, on that 
losing day. Among the leaders, too, were Parsons, and Spen- 
cer, and Wooster, and Wolcott, and Ledyard, and, last of all, 
but not least worthy to be named, though to name him should 
never be necessary before a Connecticut audience, that mournful 
flower of patriotism, the young scholar of Coventry ; he whom 
no service could daunt that Washington desired, and who, when 
he was called to die an ignominious death, nobly said to his en- 
emies and executioners, that " his only regret was that he had 
but one life to give for his country." 
3 



34 

But I must not omit to speak of our venerable Governor, the 
patriotic Trumbull, under whom we acted our part in this 
eventful struggle. He was one of those patient, true-minded 
men, that hold an even hand of authority in stormy times, and 
suffer nothing to fall out of place either by excess or defect of 
service — to whom Washington could say, " I cannot sufficiently 
express my thanks, not only for your constant and ready com- 
pliance with every request of mine, but for your prudent fore- 
cast, in ordering matters, so that your force has been collected 
and put in motion as soon as it has been demanded." And yet 
there like to have been a fatal breach between them, at the be- 
ginning of the war. The British ships in the sound were threat- 
ening to land on our coast, and Trumbull requested that a part 
of the troops he was raising might remain to guard our own 
soil. No request, apparently, could be more reasonable. 
Washington refused and ordered them all to Boston. Trum- 
bull wrote him a most pungent letter ; adding, however, like a 
true patriot, who sees the necessity of subordination to all 
power and effect, that he will comply ; " for it is plain that such 
jealousies indulged, however just, will destroy the cause." 
Noble answer ! worthy to be recorded, as a rebuke to faction, 
while the republic lasts ! Washington immediately explained, 
the misunderstanding was healed, and from that time forth he 
leaned upon Trumbull as one of his chief supports ; confident 
always of this, that he could calculate on marching the whole 
state bodily just where he pleased. 

Neither let us forget, in this connection, what appears to be 
sufficiently authenticated, that our Trumbull is no other than 
the world-renowned Brother Jonathan, accepted as the soubri- 
quet of the United States of America. Our Connecticut 
Jonathan was to Washington what the scripture Jonathan was 
to David, a true friend, a counsellor and stay of confidence — 
Washington's brother. When he wanted honest counsel and 
wise, he would say, " let us consult brother Jonathan ;" and 
then afterwards, partly from habit and partly in playfulness of 
phrase, he would say the same when referring any matter to the 
Congress,— "let us consult Brother Jonathan." And so it fell 
out rightly, that as Washington was called the Father of his 
Country, so he named the fine boy, the nation, after his brother 



3^ 

Jonathan — a good, solid, scripture name, which as our sons 
and daughters of the coming time may speak it, any where 
between the two oceans, let them remember honest, old Con- 
necticut and the tliithful and true brother she gave to Wash- 
ington ! 

Considering the very intimate historic connection of our 
Revolution with the influence of the clergy, their active in- 
stigation to it and their constant, powerful co-operation in 
it, the transition we make in passing from our military history 
to that of the pulpit, is by no means violent. Only in speaking 
of our great men here and our theologic standing generally, I 
must speak in the briefest manner. No mean distinction is it to 
say that the renowned theologian, preacher and philosopher, 
Jonathan Edwards, was a native of Connecticut, and a gradu- 
ate of Yale College. And though the more active part of his 
life was spent in Massachusetts, he retained his affinities, more 
especially, with the churches and ministers of Connecticut. I 
need not say that there is no American name of higher repute, 
not only among the divines, but also among the metaphysicians 
both of this country and of Europe. Dr. Dwight was born in 
Massachusetts but educated here, and here was the scene of 
his life. Besides these, having our Hooker, and Davenport, 
and Bellamy, and Smalley, and by a less exclusive property, 
our Hopkins and Emmons, and Griffin, all sons of Connecticut, 
we have abundant reason, I think, to be satisfied with our high 
eminence in the department of theological literature and pulpit 
effect. 

As regards our poets I will only detain you to say that, while 
I am far from thinking that every thing wdiich beats time in 
verse is poetry, it is yet something that we have our Trumbull, 
and Hillhouse, and Brainard, and Percival, and Pierpont, and 
Halleck, who, not to speak of others closer to our acquaintance, 
have written what can never perish, while wit may enliven 
men's hearts, or music and the sense of beauty remain. 

Including, next, in our inventory, mechanical inventions, I 
may say that the great improvements in cotton machinery, 



36 

bv Gilbert Brewster, justify the title sometimes given him of the 
Arkwright of our country. 

The cotton gin of Whitney, is a machine that, by itself, has 
doubled the productive power, and so the value of the Southern 
half of our country. If the inventor had been paid for his 
invention, and not defrauded of his rights by a conspiracy too 
strong for the laws, the interest of his money would redeem all 
the fugitives that cross the line of free labor, as long as there is 
such a line to cross. 

The first two printing presses patented in the United States, 
were from Hartford. 

Joshua Fitch of Connecticut, has the distinguished honor of 
producing the first steam boat that ever moved upon the waters 
of the world. He was unfortunate in his character, though a 
man of genius and high enthusiasm. Failing of the means ne- 
cessary to complete his experiments, and universally derided by 
the public, he persisted in the confidence that steam was to be 
the great agent of river navigation in the world, and gave it, 
as a last request, that " his body might be buried on the banks 
of the Ohio, where his rest would be soothed by the blowing of 
the steam and the splash of the waters." 

It is not as generally known, I believe, that the first steam 
locomotive, ever constructed, was run in the streets of Hartford. 
The inventor was Doctor Kinsley, a man whose history was 
strikingly similar to that of Fitch, The late Theodore Dwight, 
known to many in this audience, lent him the money with 
which he made his experiments. He succeeded in part, but 
fell through into bai,ikruptcy, at the end, still persisting that 
steam was to be the agent of the land travel of the world. 
His experiments were made between the years '97 and '9, pre- 
vious to the introduction of rails as the guides and supports of 
motion. 

It now remains to speak of the rank we have held, in the 
matter of education, and the power we have exerted by that 
means, in the republic. It is remarkable that a very large 
share of the colleges in our nation draw their lineage, not from 
Harvard, most distinguished in the fruits of elegant literature, 
but from Yale. This is true of Dartmouth, Princeton, Wil- 



37 

liams, Middlebuiy, Hamilton, Western Reserve, Jacksonville, 
and Athens University in Georgia. These institutions were 
some of them planned in Connecticut, others of them moved, or 
in some principal degree manned, by the graduates of Yale 
College and sons of Connecticut. Dr. Johnson of Stratford, a 
graduate of Yale and afterwards of Oxford, was the principal 
originator and first President also of Columbia College, New 
York. I find in the office of our Secretary of State, a petition to 
our Legislature from the Trustees of Princeton College, asking 
leave to draw a lottery here for the benefit of their institution, 
such leave being denied them by their own state. They aver 
in their petition, that " it would be a happy means of establish- 
ing and perpetuating a desirable harmony between the two 
institutions, Yale and Princeton, which it will be the care of 
your petitioners to promote and preserve." Leave was 
granted ; for it was the manner of our state to seize every op- 
portunity in every place, for the assistance of learning. I may 
also add that Mr. Crary, to whose active exertions in behalf of 
education the school system and the State University of Mich- 
igan are mainly due, is a son of Connecticut and a graduate of 
Trinity College. 

Our system of common schools, originated by a public statute, 
which is one of the very first statutes passed by the colonial 
Legislature and faithfully maintained, down to within the past 
twenty years, was till then acknowledged to be far in advance of 
that of any other state. The founding of our school fund, too, 
was an act generally regarded and spoken of with admiration 
every where, as characteristic of the state. 

And now, if you will see what force there is in education, 
what precedence it gives and preponderance of weight, even to 
a small and otherwise insignificant state, you have only to see 
what Connecticut has effected through the medium of her 
older college and her once comparatively vigorous system of 
common schools, 

I have spoken of the numerous colleges dotting the map ot 
the republic, which are seen to be more or less directly off- 
shoots of Yale. If you ask what parts of the republic were set- 
tled principally by emigrations from Connecticut, they are the 
Eastern part of Long Island, the Northern half of New Jersey, 



38 

the Western sections of Massachusetts and Vermont, Middle 
and Western New York, the Susquehanna valley in Pennsyl- 
vania, and the Western Reserve territory in Ohio— just those 
portions of our country, more recently settled, as you will per- 
ceive, that are most distinguished for industry, thrift, intelli- 
gence, good morals and character. 

Again, if you enter into the legislative bodies of other states 
west of us, and ask who are the members, you will find the 
sons of Connecticut among them in a large proportion of numbers 
compared with those of any other state. In the convention, for 
example, that revised the Constitution of New York in 1821, it 
was found that, out of one hundred and twenty-six members, 
thirty-two were natives of Connecticut, not including those who 
were born of a Connecticut parentage in that state. Of the 
sons of Massachusetts, which according to the ratio of popula- 
tion, ought to had about seventy, there were only nine. If you 
add to the thirty-two natives of Connecticut, in that body, her 
descendants born in New York, and those who came in 
through Vermont, New Jersey, and other states, it is altogether 
probable that they would be found to compose a majority of the 
body; presenting the very interesting fact that Connecticut is 
found sitting there, to make a Constitution for the great state of 
New York. I found on inquiry, four or five winters ago, that 
the New York Legislature contained fifteen natives of Connec- 
ticut, while of Massachusetts there were only nine ; though, 
according to her ratio of numbers, there should have been 
about forty. So also in the Ohio Legislature of 1838-9, there 
were found in the lower house of seventy-four members, twelve 
from Connecticut, two from Massachusetts, two from Vermont. 

If we repair to the Halls of the American Congress, we shall 
there discover what Connecticut is doiiig on a still larger scale 
of comparison. The late Hon. James Hillhouse, when he was 
in Congress, ascertained that forty-seven of the members, or 
about one-fifth of the whole number in both Houses, were 
native born sons of Connecticut. Mr. Calhoun assured one 
of our Representatives, when upon the floor of the House with 
him, that he had seen the time, when the natives of Connecticut, 
together with all the graduates of Yale College there collected, 
wanted only five of being a majority of that body. I took some 



39 

pains in the winter, I tiiink, of '43, to ascertain how the compo- 
sition of the Congress stood at that time. There could not, of 
course be as many native citizens of Connecticut among the 
members, as in the days of Mr. Hillhouse; but including native 
citizens and descendants born out of the state, I found exactly 
his number, forty-seven. Of the New York representation, six- 
teen or two-fifths were sons or descendants, in the male line, of 
Connecticut. 

Saying nothing of descendants born out of the state, there 
were at that time, eighteen native born sons of Connecticut in 
the Congress. According to the Blue Book, Massachusetts had 
seventeen ; when taken in the proportion of numbers she should 
have had forty-two. New Hampshire should have had eighteen 
also, but had only seven ; Vermont eighteen, but had only four ; 
Louisiana eighteen, but had only two ; New Jersey twenty-one, 
but had only nine. I see no way to account for these facts, 
especially when the comparison is taken between Connecticut 
and Massachusetts, unless it be that, prior to a time quite recent, 
our school system was farther advanced and the education im- 
parted to our youth more universal and more perfect. 

How beautiful is the attitude of our little state, when seen 
through the medium of facts like these. Unable to carry weight 
by numbers, she is seen marching out her sons to conquer other 
posts of influence and represent her honor in other fields of 
action. Which, if she continues to do, if she takes the past 
simply as a beginning and returns to that beginning with a 
fixed determination to make it simply the germ of a higher and 
more perfect culture, there need scarcely be a limit to the 
power she may exert, as a member of the republic. The small- 
ness of our territory is an advantage even, as regards the high- 
est form of social development and the most abundant fruits of 
genius. Our state under a skillful and sufficient agriculture 
with a proper improvement of our water falls, is capable of sus- 
taining a million of people, in a condition of competence and 
social ornament ; and that is a number as large as any state 
government can manage with the highest effect. No part of 
our country between the two oceans is susceptible of greater 
external beauty. What now looks rough and forbidding in our 
jagged hill-sides and our raw beginnings of culture, will be soft- 



40 

ened, in the future landscape, to an ornamental rock-work, 
skirted by fertility ; pressing out in the cheeks of the green dells, 
where the farm-houses are nested; bursting up through the wav- 
ino- slopes of the meadows, and walling the horizon about with 
wooded hills of rock and pastured summits. We have pure 
transparent waters, a clear bell-toned atmosphere and, with all, 
a robust, healthy minded stock of people ; uncorrupted by lux- 
ury, unhumiliated by superstition, sharpened by good necessi- 
ties, industrious in their habits, simple in their manners and 
tastes, rigid in their morals and principles; combining, in short, 
all the higher possibilities of character and genius, in a degree 
that will seldom be exceeded in any people of the world. These 
are the mines, the golden placers of Connecticut. Turning 
now to these as our principal hope for the future, let us en- 
deavor, with a fixed and resolute concentration of our public 
aim, to keep the creative school-house in action, and raise our 
institutions of learning to the highest pitch of excellence. 

I am far from thinking that our schools have ever been as 
low, or inefficient as many have supposed ; the facts I have 
recited clearly show the contrary. And yet they certainly are 
not worthy of our high advantages, or the age of improvement 
in which we live. Therefore I rejoice that our lethargy is now 
finally broken, and that we are fairly embarked in an organized 
plan for the raising of our schools to a pitch of culture and per- 
fection, worthy of our former precedence. 

I remember with fresh interest, to-day, how my talented 
friend, who has most reason of all to rejoice in the festivities of 
this occasion, consulted with me, as many as thirteen years ago, 
in regard to his plans of life ; raising, in particular, the question 
whether he should give himself wholly and finally up to the 
cause of public schools. I knew his motives, the growing dis- 
taste he had for political life, in which he was already embarked 
with prospects of success, and the desire he felt to occupy some 
field more immediately and simply beneficent. He made his 
choice ; and now, after encountering years of untoward hin- 
drance here, winning golden opinions meantime from every 
other state in the republic, and from ministers of education in 
almost every nation of the old world, by his thoroughly prac- 
tical understanding of all that pertains to the subject ; after 



41 

raising also into vigorous action the school system of another 
state, and setting it forward in a tide of progress, he returns 
to the scene of his beginnings and permits us here to con- 
gratulate both him and ourselves, in the prospect that his ori- 
ginal choice and purpose are finally to be fulfilled. He has our 
confidence ; we are to have his ripe experience ; and the work 
now fairly begun is to go on, I trust, by the common consent of 
us all, till the schools of our state are placed on a footing of the 
highest possible energy and perfection. 

To exhibit the kind of expectation we are to set before Con- 
necticut as a state, let me give you the picture of a little obscure 
parish in Litchfield county ; and I hope you will pardon me if I do 
it, as I must, with a degree of personal satisfaction ; for it is not 
any very bad vice in a son to be satisfied with his parentage. 
This little parish is made up of the corners of three towns, and 
the ragged ends and corners of twice as many mountains and 
stony sided hills. But this rough, wild region, bears a race of 
healthy minded, healthy bodied, industrious and religious people, 
They love to educate their sons and God gives them their re- 
ward. Out of this little, obscure nook among the mountains 
have come forth two presidents of colleges, the two that a few 
years ago presided, at the same time, over the two institutions, 
Yale and Washington, or Trinity. Besides these they have 
furnished a secretary of state for the commonwealth, during a 
quarter of a century or more. Also a member of congress. 
Also a distinguished professor. And besides these a greater 
number of law^yers, physicians, preachers and teachers, both 
male and female, than I am now able to enumerate. Probably 
some of you have never so much as heard the name of this little 
bye-place on the map of Connecticut, generally it is not on the 
maps at all, but how many cities are there of 20,000 inhabit- 
ants in our country, that have not exerted one-half the influ- 
ence on mankind. The power of this little parish, it is not 
too much to say, is felt in every part of our great nation. 
Recognised, of course, it is not ; but still it is felt. 

This, now, is the kind of power in which Connecticut is to 
have her name and greatness. This, in small, is what Connec- 
ticut should be. She is to find her first and noblest interest, 
apart from religion, in the full and perfect education of her sons 



42 

and daughters. And so she is to be sending out her youth, 
empowered in capacity and fortified by virtue, to take their posts 
of honor and influence in the other states ; in her behalf to be 
their physicians and ministers of reHgion, their professors and 
lawyers, their wise senators, their great orators and incorrupti- 
ble judges, bulwarks of virtue, truth and order to the republic, 
in all coming time. And then, when the vast area of our coun- 
try between the two oceans is filled with a teeming population, 
when the delegates of sixty or a hundred states, from the granite 
shores of the East, and the alluvial plains of the South, and the 
golden mountains of the West, are assembled in the Halls of 
our Congress, and little Connecticut is there represented in her 
own behalf, by her one delegate, it will still and always be 
found that she is numerously represented also by her sons from 
other states, and her one delegate shall be himself regarded in 
his person, as the symbol of that true Brother Jonathan, whose 
name still designates the great republic of the world. 

Meantime, if any son of Connecticut will indulge in the de- 
graded sneer, by which ignorant and malicious custom, has 
learned to insult her name, let him be looked upon as the man 
who is able to please himself in defiling the ashes of his mother. 
Let me testify my hearty joy too, in the presence of this assem- 
bly, that a citizen of Connecticut has at last been heard in the 
Senate of this great nation, doing honor to its noble history, by 
a fit chastisement of the insult, which a volunteer malice, em- 
boldened by former impunity, was tempted again to offer to our 
commonwealth. 

Fellow citizens, I have endeavored, this evening, to show you 
Connecticut, what she has been, and so what she is and ought 
to be. I undertook this subject, simply because of the chilling 
and depressing influence I have so often experienced from the 
want of any sufficient public feeling in our state. I am not a 
historian, and I may have fallen into some mistakes, which a 
critic in American history will detect. I knew but imperfectly 
when I began, how great a wealth of character and incident 
our history contains. I supposed it might be more defective 
than I could wish, as regards the kind of material most fitted 
to inspire a public enthusiasm. But, as I proceeded patiently 
in my questions, gathering, stage by stage, this inventory, which 



43 

I have condensed even to dryness, I began to be morlilied by 
the discovery that the age of Connecticut history most defec- 
tive and least worthy of respect is the present — that we are 
most to be honored in that wliich we have forgot, and least be- 
cause we have forgotten it. 

Such, I say, is Connecticut ! There is no outburst of 
splendor in her history, no glaring or obtrusive prominence 
to attract the applause of the multitude. Her true merit and 
position are discovered only by search, she is seen only through 
the sacred veil of modesty — great only, in the silent energy of 
worth and beneficence. But when she is brought forth out of 
her retirement, instead of the little, declining, undistinguished, 
scarcely distinguishable state of Connecticut, you behold, rising 
to view, a history of practical greatness and true honor ; illus- 
trious in its beginning ; serious and faithful in its progress ; dis- 
pensing intelligence, without the rewards of fame ; heroic for 
the right, instigated by no hope of applause ; independent, as 
not knowing how to be otherwise ; adorned with names of wis- 
dom and greatness fit to be revered, as long as true excellence 
may have a place in the reverence of mankind. 



peerlj far Cntinnttntt. 



BE.'ING AN 



HISTORICAL ESTIMATE 

OF THE STATE, 



DELIVERED REFORE 



THE LEGISrATURE AND OTHER INVITED GUESTS, 



FESTTVAl np THE NORMAL SCHOOL IN NEW BRITAIN, JUNE 4, 1851. 



BY HORACE BUSH NEL L. 



PRINTED BY ORDER OF THE LEGISLATURE 



^ HARTFORD: 



BOS WELL AND FAXON 
1851. 



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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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